What roles do nodes play in a Kubernetes cluster?

In a Kubernetes cluster, nodes perform different roles, the main ones are:

• Master Node: responsible for managing the cluster, scheduling tasks, monitoring health, and storing configuration. It runs components like kube-apiserver, kube-scheduler, kube-controller-manager, and etcd.

• Worker Node: these nodes run application containers. They host kubelet (the agent managing containers), kube-proxy (network proxy), and container runtime (such as containerd or Docker).

• Node with Ingress or Storage role: sometimes nodes are dedicated to specific tasks, such as load balancing incoming traffic (Ingress Controller) or data storage (Persistent Volumes).

Thus, node roles are divided into management and worker nodes, ensuring cluster scalability and reliability.